Restored in time for Ceremony of Remembrance

Historic City News learned that Fire Chief Mike Arnold and Fire Marshal John Rayno set the plaque for the 1902 fire bell to be rung at 8:30 a.m. during the Ceremony of Remembrance; Sunday, September 11, on the St. Augustine Fire Department grounds located at 101 Malaga Street.

City workers Gary Babcock and Tom Deering do the heavy lifting required to install the City’s 1902 fire bell, which has been restored and set on the grounds of the St. Augustine Fire Department’s main station.

The City of St. Augustine continues the annual tradition of holding the ceremony honoring those who died in the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

The public is invited and encouraged to participate in the 10th annual community ceremony.

The 700-pound bell, forged by McNeely & Co. in West Troy, N.Y., was originally set in the city building which once stood on the corner of Hypolita and St. George streets; the site of the Columbia Restaurant today.

Initially it alarmed citizens of fire, and the “first man to hitch his horses to the fire pump and get to the fire got $5,” according to a plaque set in the bell frame. A paid fire department was established in 1902.

The bell was borrowed by the National Park Service in 1939 and hung in a tower of the Castillo de San Marcos until 1965. In 1986 the bell was donated to the St. Augustine Historical Society, which has presented it on loan to the fire department.

“We’re proud to have the bell on the fire department grounds,” Fire Chief Mike Arnold said, “and to inaugurate its setting on the anniversary of the tragic events in which so many firefighters and first responders gave their lives.”

The coquina concrete walkway and base copy the shape of the adjacent Flagler fountain site at the Malaga Street location, originally site of a train station established by oil magnate Henry Flagler.

The bell’s restoration is a cooperative effort of the city, Flagler College, the University of Florida, and the St. Augustine Historical Society.

Sunday’s ceremonies begin at 8:30 a.m. with the bell-ringing at 8:45, when the first of two hijacked jetliners hit New York’s twin towers.

Photo credits: © 2011 Historic City News contributed photograph by George Gardner